This Transcript was auto-generated.
As I said this re-statement of the blessing given earlier and echoes Chapter 12 of the Abrahamic covenant, where God said anybody who blesses the Jews are going to be blessed, and anybody who curses the Jews are going to be cursed. Granted, Jacob’s blessing was oral and not written, but according to the rules and laws of that day, what Isaac said was still legally binding. He has blessed Jacob and it was unalterable. It cannot be reversed as a matter of fact, there are records archaeologists have dug up of accounts of oral oaths similar to this from this time as being recognised as still applying 100’s if not 1000’s of years later. So, we know that this agreement was binding.
Today, we would say that you have to have a signed contract and have the signatures witnessed. But they didn’t do that in those days, but this was still a legally binding agreement. Giving my blessing, equated to authorising you inheritance.
This is why this is very important, and not just an intriguing story. Jacob gets blessed and usurps the family inheritance. If you’ve got a Bible you don’t need to watch soap operas for dramatic stories. As we have worked through this chapter of Genesis it sometime feels like we’ve hardly come across a honest character yet. We have just seen Isaac going off and marrying two Hittite women and by doing so deliberately disobeying God.
Rebecca his mother is also deliberately disobeying God and Jacob is going along with his mother and lying and blaspheming God in the process. We could understand it if God was pretty disgusted with these people, yet these are the people he’s chosen to bless. But the plot is about to take another twist. Let’s go back to the passage and pick it up at verse 30.
30 After Isaac finished blessing him, and Jacob had scarcely left his father’s presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. 31 He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, “My father, please sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing.”32 His father Isaac asked him, “Who are you?” “I am your son,” he answered, “your firstborn, Esau.” 33 Isaac trembled violently and said, “Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came, and I blessed him—and indeed he will be blessed!” 34 When Esau heard his father’s words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, “Bless me—me too, my father!”
(Genesis 27: 30-34)
Remember, Esau he went out to kill some animals so he could fix his father his favourite meal and when he returns Isaac finds out about the deception that has been played on him. The text says he trembled violently, and in fact, this particular Hebrew word has several different shades of meaning. One possible meaning is he was terrified, he realized that he had blessed the son he didn't intend to bless. Not surprisingly Esau cries out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father blessed me as well, my father.
35 But he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” 36 Esau said, “Isn’t he rightly named Jacob? This is the second time he has taken advantage of me: He took my birth right, and now he’s taken my blessing!” Then he asked, “Haven’t you reserved any blessing for me?”
(Genesis 27: 35-36)
Stole it? That’s what Jacob has done, the he and his Mother operated amounted to stealing. At birth they called Jacob a supplanter, do you remember, when these two were born and I pointed out that Esau came out first and Jacob grabbed his heel. His name actually translates as heel grabber, the imagery behind this is if you were running a footrace and one runner grabbed the heel of the runner in front of him, he would trip, and the second runner would be able to overtake him. So that’s what he’s saying, he’s done this before, right from the beginning. Esau says he cheated me out of the birth right, and now he’s cheating me out of the blessing.
Do you remember how Jacob got the birth right? Remember that story he came in from the field, he was hungry, and he said give me some soup, remember that story? He said, yeah, I’ll give it to if you give me the blessing, and he gave him the birth right for food. Esau says here is he took it from me but that no exactly what really happened? No, not at all. He gave it up, he surrendered his birth right, he exchanged it for a bowl of soup and now he is blaming his brother.
37 Isaac answered Esau, “I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?” 38 Esau said to his father, “Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!” Then Esau wept aloud”.
(Genesis 27: 37-38)
He still wanted his father’s blessing and here his father answers and says to him, alright, I’m going to bless you .Now, we need to pay careful attention to this blessing. I wonder if he Esau will get what he expects, well we will look at that next episode.
281
A Tale of Two Twins – Esau and Jacob
The Blessing is Given.
Genesis 27: 39-45
(913e)
OK, having put his father Isaac under pressure to give him a blessing, this is what his father says. Be careful what you ask for Esau.
39 His father Isaac answered him, “Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from the dew of heaven above. 40 You will live by the swore and you will serve your brother. But when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.”
(Genesis 27: 39-45),
In this particular translation, the little phrases away from the earth’s richness (KJV) and the dew of heaven , are a way of saying, you’re not going to get a very prosperous piece of property. You’re going to live in a barren place. That’s your inheritance, and also you shall live, and you shall serve your brother and you’re going to experience oppression and have conflict in your life. You may try and escape or contest it but you’re still going to end up serving your brother. There's a long history of conflict here but I don't have time to go into, but this prophecy became fully realised and described in a little book of Obadiah. Obadiah is just one chapter long, you’ll find it just before the book of Jonah and it details the prophecy against Edom. (Esau’s descendants) This was literally fulfilled in the history of Israel and their relations with their neighbours.
“Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.”
(Genesis 27: 41)
Alright, let’s analyse very carefully what is going on here. Esau was envious of Jacob, because he sold his birth right and lost his blessing, but now still wanted a blessing from his father. Too little, too late. Here we see his envy turned into hate and the hate turned into a desire to murder, his brother. He says to himself my father is probably going to die soon, so I’m going to wait until he dies and then I’m going to kill my brother. Does that sound like something that happened thousands of years ago or something you read in a newspaper yesterday? This is up-to-date stuff. We all have heard stories of this sort of thing going on when a wealthy father leaves their inheritance to their children and the siblings are at each other’s throat. Have you ever known siblings to go at each other because of the inheritance? Welcome to the Book of Genesis.
Verse 42.
42 When Rebekah was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is planning to avenge himself by killing you. Now then, my son, do what I say: Flee at once to my brother Laban in Harran.
(Genesis 27: 42-43)
Esau, get out of town, his mother says, the way this is worded, the words that are used indicate that she wants him to do this immediately, there’s an intensity here. Get out of here now, and go to Laban. Get out of town and just stay out of town and after a couple of little while he’ll calm down and you can come back. Is that what happened? - Not even close.
Later as we through the Book of Genesis we will discover it’s 20 years later before Jacob comes back. But for right now, what you need to understand is that her plan is for him to get out of town and come back maybe in just a few days or weeks. Then chapter 27 closes out by saying.
“Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.”When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I’ll send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”
(Genesis 27: 44-45)
And so, we are told that she hopes his brother’s anger will reduce and he will forget what Jacob did to him. Then she will send for him to come back. Why should I be bereaved, and loose you both in one day, because if you stay and he kills you, then I’m going to lose two sons. She then goes into Isaac and she says, look, Jacob needs a wife. So I’m going to send him back to my brother. My brother’s household and he can get a wife from among our extended family and not from the people in the land. She sells the idea of Jacob leaving to her husband Isaac remembering that how she and Isaac met. That’s how she became his wife. What is she is suggesting looks similar to what happened between her and Isaac, but she isn’t really sending him away to get a wife, though that will happen.She is sending him away is to keep his brother from killing him.
To really finish this part of this story, we need to dip very briefly into. Chapter 28, but before we do, I want to point out she’s really playing every card in the book. So, what happens next? Well, we close by reading the beginning of chapter 28.
The Blessing is Given.
Genesis 28: 1-9
So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.” Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.
(Genesis 29: 1-5)
For the rest of these verses Rebecca gives instruction and simply says go and get a wife from our family. So here we have God promised to give the land to Abraham, to bless him, to bring the Messiah to the world through his descendants. Those blessings will be transferred to Jacob, and hence we have in the Bible the expression, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of the Jewish people.
“Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, “Do not marry a Canaanite woman,” and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had”.
(Genesis 29: 6-10)
Right now, we’re going to shift back to Esau for a moment. We’re almost done, getting a Canaanite wife didn’t please the father. So poor Esau didn’t get it right the again. At this point in the book of Genesis, Jacob goes off and the narrative follows his story and Esau fades into the background. Jacob ends up having twelve sons, which become the 12 tribes of the Nation of Israel, but before we get into that
I want to pause and just consider for a moment what we’ve seen in this story so far. In a nutshell, Rebecca, and Jacob deceived Isaac and Esau, and when Esau became angry with Jacob, Jacob had to flee. That’s the story in a nutshell. It tells us some things about God. It tells us some things about these two brothers, and it could tell us some things about ourselves if we will let it. Do you find any redeeming quality in characters in this story? There isn’t a nice guy in this whole thing, spiritually speaking, and that’s the lesson, folks, that’s the lesson of this whole story. That’s the lesson, folks, even when our lives are a car crash you can’t thwart the plans of God s plan. God accomplishes his purposes in spite of the sins of people. Isaac was disobedient, Rebecca was a manipulator and Jacob was an extremely deceptive person. Yet through it all, God accomplished his purpose. One commentator says, and I quote,
“This account. is another remarkable demonstration of God’s ability to use the sins of men and women to accomplish his purpose and at the same time punish the sinners for their sin”[1].
This chapter offers one of the most singular instances of God overruling and controlling the affairs of sinful men and women. The interest of gods Kingdom are safeguarded what men and women intended for evil God utilizes things for good. One lesson in this long story is you’re not going to mess up God’s plan. God said, I’m going to say those who believe in Jesus Christ, and simply trust him, I’ll give you the gift of eternal life. Your mistake or even sins are not going to frustrate the grace of God and his plan to take you to heaven. If you’ve trusted Jesus Christ, you are eternally secure, isn’t that comforting? It’s a gift. It’s not based on your goodness. It’s based on God’s gift.
Let me tell something about these two brothers. This is the third time they’ve been going at each other. The first was at birth, the second was over the birth right and the third was over the blessing. In all three instances, Jacob manipulated his brother in spite of God’s promise. The manipulation and deception of Rebecca did not gain Jacob anything, because God had promised the birth right would go to Jacob. Actually, they lost a great deal, the mother lost her son. Jacob had to flee for his life and for all we know, Rebecca never saw him again. Jacob lost his comforts of home and all the possessions of his father he had accumulated. He had to flee with nothing and begin a life for himself. They sent didn’t interrupt God program. God still did what he said he was going to do, but they were disciplined. They didn’t get any advantage; they did not gain anything that they would not have received because God promised it anyway. It looks like they won, but they actually lost. They were separated from each other for the rest of their lives. Their success was soured by separation.
People who know God’s should never stoop to deceptive manipulation to gain spiritual success but must strive to achieve God will righteously. What do we walk away from all of this beside getting to read a fascinating story. What do we get out of this? It should be self-evident by now. It should teach us that in the end, lying and deception will never gain spiritual advantage. Had they not done that, they’d have gotten what they wanted and not suffered the personal consequences,, but they lied, and they deceived one another. I conclude with this.
The spiritual lesson of this passage should be slapping you in the face. But just in case it didn’t, let me state it for you very clearly,. In his second letters to a church in Corinth Paul wrote.
“Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God”.
(2 Cor 4: 2)
That’s the lesson, don’t use deception and don’t walk in craftiness, don’t handle the word of God deceitfully. We should walk away from this story saying they practice lying and deception but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to practice transparency and truth and love in everything I do.
[1] John Schlen “Bible Outline” Genesis 28.